Flatlines, or Pax Americana

Peace is our fantasia

which the dead are lying in,

a tombstone that will quiver

while the raven rests its wings.

We think the fallen cannot hear us—

our squealing shells of mortar,

gnash of go back to

your country that mortally

wounds. A sister’s

guttural sough, clothing clawed in

two, bruises on her face

the shade of rape.

We consider blue

to be a tranquil pigment.

The peace of a cloudless dawn.

But we only spot the trails

of guided missiles. The luminosity

of blood. Every human shadow

stretching out, like an elastic’s

elongation. Light reveals our

targets. The callousness of sun.

Frozen in a fervor all for naught.

Or peace might be the choice

of a middle finger—

rebelling against its

drive to flip the bird, 

spreading with our index

in a manifest of V, a flock on

its migration to

a fairytale of warmth;

a sign of Victory,

or maybe just a gesture

to the Somali you’re supposed to

spite, every bit as human

as yourself, as worthy as our bones

to seek their slumber; a tanager’s

intonation, supplanting the pipes

of bombs, lulling all to

bolt their eyes, soar off to

some phantom Camelot—

barren of belief, 

of flags which serve as

shrouds, their fifty stars to

burst in supernovae,

bars of red that dash

beyond their bounds,

the absence of a pulse

we never took.

Andreas Gripp

January 26, 2026

RF Photo